Air Liquide CEO Builds Europe Business as Linde Expands in U.S.

July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Air Liquide SA Chief Executive
Officer Benoit Potier said the company will develop its European
home health-care business, as German competitor Linde AG pursues
a $3.8 billion purchase of Lincare Holdings Inc. in the U.S.

“We’re quite comfortable in developing our European home-care business,” Potier said today at a press conference in
Paris. “There will be other opportunities across the world.”

Potier declined to say whether Air Liquide might counterbid
for Lincare as the Paris-based company “never comments on
ongoing market operations.” There are risks in the U.S. home-care market, he said.

Linde, based in Munich, may leapfrog Air Liquide as the
world’s biggest maker of industrial gases when it completes the
purchase of Lincare announced this month. Air Liquide had
expressed interest in Clearwater, Florida-based Lincare, a
person familiar with the sale process said in June. Air Liquide
has exited the U.S home-care market twice, Potier said.

“The next three to four years will be years of great
changes for the U.S. market,” Potier said. “I don’t know how
the home health-care market will stabilise.” U.S. federal
authorities and private insurers have stringent requirements for
companies managing customer files, and those falling short “may
end up with the costs and not with the sales,” Potier said.

The market for home care “is mainly located in the U.S.,
Europe and Japan, though the emerging middle class in new
economies is also asking for home care,” which is typically
cheaper than hospital care, Potier said.

Shares Decline

In the past two months, Air Liquide agreed to buy LVL
Medical Groupe SA’s French operations for 316 million euros
($387 million) and Spain’s Gasmedi for 330 million euros to
expand services for aging populations in mature economies.

Air Liquide’s second-quarter sales rose 5.1 percent to 3.75
billion euros, the company said today in a statement. That
compared with the 3.81 billion-euro average estimate of analysts
in a Bloomberg survey.

Sales of gas and services rose 0.9 percent to 3.39 billion
euros, excluding the effects of natural-gas prices, currency
shifts and acquisitions or disposals. That’s the smallest
increase in 10 quarters as European steel and automakers reeled
from the sovereign debt crisis, and Japanese electronics makers
reduced investment.